FWIW, Robert Graves thought the whole one-eye thang was because they wore eyepatches, being blacksmiths and all, to keep sparks out of their eyes. Cyclops means (most likely) round-eye.<br><br>

Looking back over The Greek Myths I see that Graves actually said they were bronzesmiths and that Cyclops meant 'ring-eyed'.

Originally Posted By: Graves, The Greek Myths

The Cyclopes seem to have been a guild of Early Helladic bronzesmiths. Cyclops means 'ring-eyed', and they are likely to have been tattooed with concentric rings on the forehead, in honour of the sun, the source of their furnace fires; the Thracians continued to tattoo themselves until Classical times. ... The Cyclopes were one-eyed in the sense that smiths often shade one eye with a patch against flying sparks.

Well, I never said I held the oliphant theory plausible. I'm more than willing to concede that the "origin" of Cyclops as a character in a story is unknown, and, maybe even, unknowable. Most folks do so hate a vacuum or lacuna, and do try almost anything to fill it. The etymology of the name though seems pretty straightforward: Κυκλωψ (Kuklops) < Greek κυκλος (kuklos) 'circle; wheel' + ωψ (ōps) 'eye'.

I was reminded, offtopically, of English louche 'morally suspect' from Old French losche 'squint-eyed' < Latin luscus 'one-eyed'. Come to think of it, wheel-eyed or round-eyed doesn't necessarily imply one-eyed. Maybe the Cyclops was like the dog with eyes as big as saucers in Andersen's The Tinder Box.

They are a group without rule, each one of them being a law unto himself with no higher law. Could the single eye somehow represent this? A limited point of view? All solo?<br><br>Just wondering...<br><br>

(a passage where Achilles, protaganist in "Omeros" gets caught by tourists' cameras after a hard day of fishing at sea:

"Achilles then cries against their clicking cameras and throws an imaginary lance.It was the cry of a warrior who looses his one soul to the clickof a cyclops".

(Nobelprize winner 1992 Derek Walcott)

The metaphor of the camera as a modern cyclops.Thinking of our news hungry hordes of camera men I like to link it to this quote from Wordwind.

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